Subjects Unto the Same King': New England Indians and the ...€¦ · . unto the same king" New England Indians and the Use of Royal Political Power JENNY HALE PULSIPHER Since Indian

"Subjects... Unto the Same King": New England Indians and the Use of Royal Political PowerAuthor(s): Jenny Hale PulsipherSource: Massachusetts Historical Review, Vol. 5 (2003), pp. 29-57Published by: Massachusetts Historical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25081179 .

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"Subjects . . . unto the same

king" New England Indians and the Use of

Royal Political Power

JENNY HALE PULSIPHER

Since Indian John Wompas's return from England early in the

summer of 1677, he had plagued his English and Indian neighbors, traveling "up and downe in a vagron Idle way" and engaging in

drunken tirades and other disorderly behavior from Boston to Natick. Sep tember 27 found him at Cambridge, near the meetinghouse. A crowd had

gathered in response to some alarm, and Wompas was filling their ears: he re

minded them pointedly that he held a letter from the king himself, demanding justice on Wompas's behalf?the express reason for and proud result of his

voyage to London. "I am the king's subject!" Wompas declared. Several Eng

lish members of his audience protested "that they were his ma[jes]ties sub

jects as wel as hee." Ensign William Barret indignantly reported Wompas's

reply: "Hee questioned that ... as if they were not legal subjects to his

ma[jesty]." To underline the colony's shaky political standing, Wompas told

several other Cambridge residents that he had observed Massachusetts's

agents, Peter Bulkeley and William Stoughton, pleading for the preservation of the colony's charter on their knees before King Charles II, and that the king had reproved them, declaring "that his grand father had [given] them their

patten but they had forfeited it and acted contrary to it."1 "New England hath lost the day," Wompas intoned, and "it is knowne in old england."2

Jenny Hale Pulsipher is an assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University.

She is the author of Children of a New World: Indians, English, and the Contest of Authority in

New England, which will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2004.

2-9



THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL REVIEW

This little-known incident opens a window onto a seventeenth-century

world of interconnected English and Indian power, where one culture could,

and did, use the other to bolster its own quest for power in a struggle that

reached well beyond New England. The last two decades have yielded a rich

array of scholarly work in both Atlantic and Indian history, contributing to a

more complex picture of early America. In the burgeoning field of Atlantic

history, recent works have noted the persistent connections between Europe

and North America, and the impact of trade, politics, and war on the people

of both old and New England.3 In Indian history, scholarship of the last few

decades has reshaped older perspectives on natives of the New World. These

writers have urged us to reexamine some of the cherished paradigms of ear

lier perspectives, such as the idea of Indians as egalitarian, nonhierarchical,

and nonmaterialistic. Instead, these studies demonstrate that Indians, like Eu

ropeans, varied in their political and social structures, experienced conflict

among and between themselves, and interacted in mutually beneficial (and

mutually destructive) ways with their European neighbors.4

The Indian use of royal authority has remained understudied in all of this,

although it bridges very directly the study of the larger Atlantic community and Indian history. That Indians recognized the utility of this avenue of ap

peal and seized it for their own use further demonstrates that natives of the

New World were deeply enmeshed not only in trade and war but also in the

politics of the Atlantic world. This was, in fact, a logical extension of their in

creasing involvement in intercolonial struggles, where they both used and

were used by colonists in their own power struggles. The English empire of

the seventeenth century endured great political uncertainty; the English Civil

War and the overthrow and later restoration of English monarchy reverber

ated in the New World as well as the old. Indian appeals to royal authority, like English appeals, ebbed and flowed with the waxing and waning of both

royal and local English power. Indians could and did target times of local

English weakness to bolster their own quests for power.

John Wompas's appeal to the king clearly illustrates Indian involvement in

the Atlantic world. To understand the significance of this late-century exam

ple, we must first examine the precontact state of Indian understanding of au

thority and subject status, the impact of English interpretations of authority on the Indians, and the nature of Indian involvement in intercolonial disputes

that linked them to the Atlantic world. Conflicting interpretations and uses of

political authority created tensions in New England that Indians used to

support their own power in a time of rapid change. One dramatic use of such

political power came through direct appeals to the king. While appealing to

30



"Subjects . . . unto the same king

the crown demonstrated "Native American statecraft, not Native American

impotence," it had unforeseen negative consequences as well as positive

ones.5 Indian insistence on equal status as royal subjects threatened local

English authority, making the English less trusting of even those Indians who

had sworn friendship. When King Philip's War broke out in 1675, that dis trust resulted in suffering for both peoples, although the Indians bore the

brunt of the disaster.

When John Wompas made the claim that he, rather than the English towns

people of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a true subject of the king, he in

voked a hierarchical model of authority that the English had used to assert

their superiority from their first settlement of New England. The concept of

subjection, however, existed on local soil well before Europeans arrived in the

New World. Indian polities in what became New England were led by sachems, political leaders acknowledged as superiors by their subjects. Roger

Williams's Key into the Language of America, published in 1643, notes the ex

istence of such relationships among the Narragansetts of present-day Rhode

Island by including the phrases "Ntacqu?tunck ewo" and "Kutt?ckquetous,"

which Williams translated as "He is my subject" and "I will subject to you."6

Subjects had the right to protection and benevolence from their superiors, but

they also had obligations to them, such as the payment of tribute. Members

of each chiefdom paid tribute demanded regularly from their sachems, and

sachems themselves sometimes paid tribute to higher sachems they recog

nized as more powerful and from whom they desired protection.7 Sachems

likewise expected tribute from people they had conquered, as the Pequots of

Connecticut did from the Montauk Indians of Long Island. Indians paid trib

ute with a number of goods, including deerskins and, increasingly with the ar

rival of Europeans, wampumpeague?blue or white beads made from

seashells drilled and strung together.8

The forms of authority familiar to New England Indians also encompassed

the alliance, an equal relationship characterized by mutual gift giving and

mutual assistance, often requested by the sending of presents. The Iroquois of

what became New York and Canada used the kinship term "brethren" for

political allies and "children" for their subjects.9 One of the Iroquois chief

doms, the Mohawks, had strong ties to the Narragansett Indians of present

day Rhode Island and may have been the source of this same use of kinship terms among the Narragansett.10 One incident in 1642 gives clear evidence

that the Narragansetts distinguished between subjects and allies in similar

31




ways. In that year Miantonomi, the sachem of the Narragansetts, attempted

to win the support of the Montauks against the English. Formerly in a posi

tion of superiority over the Montauks, Miantonomi here dramatically altered

his relationship with them, "and instead of receiving presents, which they

used to do in their progress, he gave them gifts, calling them brethren and

friends."11

These traditional political relationships shaped Indian understanding of

English political systems and of the agreements made between the two peo

ples after English settlement. The first treaty between Indians and English in

New England occurred in March 1621, when Massasoit, sachem of the

Wampanoags of Plymouth, made a "league of peace" with John Carver, the

governor of Plymouth Colony. This initial treaty addressed Massasoit as

"friend" and "ally" of King James, not mentioning the word "subject" at all,

a clear signal to the Indians that they would enjoy an alliance of equals with

the English.12 The stipulations of the original treaty implied reciprocity, or

equality, despite some noted exceptions, such as the clause that demanded

that Indians deliver any offender against the English to English justice but

that lacked a reciprocal clause delivering offenders against the Indians to In

dian justice. Nevertheless, the historical record makes it clear that Massasoit

assumed reciprocity applied to every aspect of the treaty, stated or not. When

Massasoit suspected Squanto of wrongdoing, he demanded the English turn

him over to the Indians for judgment. When Plymouth's governor resisted,

Massasoit protested vehemently, "demanding him ... as being one of his sub

jects, whom, by our first Articles of Peace, we could not retain."13 In addition,

the English asked no tribute of the Indians, as superior sachems traditionally

did of their subjects. Rather, they gave and received gifts to solidify what they

repeatedly referred to as a friendship.14

Within a year of this first agreement, the word "subject" began to appear

in interactions between the two peoples. Plymouth colonist Nathaniel Mor

ton asserted that, in the immediate aftermath of the 1621 treaty, Massasoit

"acknowledged himself content to become the subject of our sovereign Lord

the King."15 By September 1621, at least nine other Wampanoag and Massa

chusett sachems had signed their names to an agreement also acknowledging

themselves "to be the Loyal Subjects of King James."16 There is good evi

dence to believe that Massasoit and these other sachems understood and ac

cepted this relationship. When Edward Winslow visited Massasoit late in

1621, for example, the sachem declared that he was "King James, his man"

and that his land was "King James his country."17 While we cannot know the

precise reasons the Indians may have accepted subjection, we can discern

32



"Subjects . . . unto the same king"

Edward Winslow. Oil on canvas, by Edgar

Parker, 1882. Collections of the Massachusetts

Historical Society.

some compelling possibilities.

First, both Indians and English desired trade, and a treaty of

peace would help ensure that.

Second, a treaty with the English

could offer the Wampanoags and the Massachusetts protec

tion against their powerful

neighbors, the Narragansetts.

Plagues had decimated Massas

oit's people in the years preced

ing Plymouth's settlement, while

the Narragansetts had somehow

avoided any infection. The re

sulting demographic imbalance made the already powerful Nar

ragansetts threatening indeed.18

The fact that many surrounding

sachems and sub-sachems en

tered into similar agreements

with Plymouth implies that

these other Indian chiefdoms also viewed submission to King James as a ben

eficial relationship. While their acceptance of this subject status might imply that these Indians

also allowed the local English to have power over them, some Indians did not

seem to think so. Rather, they seem to have believed that being subjects of the

king made them the equals of the local English, who were also royal subjects. An incident in 1637 demonstrates this thinking. In the midst of the Pequot

War, the Montauks, once subject to the Pequots, volunteered to switch their

subjection to the English and to pay them tribute. Narragansett sachem

Miantonomi protested strongly, telling Montauk sachem Waiandance that he

"must give no more wampum to the English, for they are no Sachems, nor

none of their children shall be in their place if they die; and they have no trib ute given them; there is but one king in England, who is over them all."19

Judged against the pattern of the Indians' past political relationships, English actions and expressions gave the Indians good reason to judge their relation

ship with the English as one of friendship rather than subjection. Equals? "friends" and "brothers"?exchanged gifts; subjects paid tribute. Thus, since

Plymouth gave gifts, did not demand tribute, and referred to Indians as

33




"friends," they must have intended a relationship based on an alliance of

equal peoples.

The English, however, had something else in mind. While they acknowl

edged that the Indians, "together with ourselves," were subjects of the king,

they did not think that shared status made them equals. According to the Eng

lish interpretation of subjection, when Indian nations signed treaties and sub

mitted to the English king, they entered a hierarchical ladder with the king at

the top, followed on descending rungs by colonial governors, magistrates,

deputies, and town officers. While the English used the term "subject" for

both themselves and the Indians, they insisted that that subject status was me

diated through the local English governments with which the Indians had made treaties. The Wampanoags were, therefore, subject to the Plymouth

government, the Mohegans to the Connecticut government, and the Narra

gansetts and Nipmucks to the Massachusetts government.20 Leaders at Ply mouth likely included references to subjection in their agreements with the In

dians to present a strong front to the Indians and to assert their connection

with a powerful protector, even though, ironically, the colony lacked a

patent.21 The language of subjection became a way to extend English control

over the Indians, not just on an imperial but also on a local level.

Plymouth was far too weak to make the full extent of subject status clear

to the Indians initially. Their treaty appeared to be, essentially, reciprocal, and

most early dealings between the two peoples took place on equal footing. But

as the colony grew stronger, it extended more and more control over Indian

governance until 1671, when the treaty between Plymouth and Metacom, or

Philip, made explicit what English practice had attempted all along: the Indi ans were subject not only to the king but to the government of New Ply

mouth.22 So, while the language of the early treaties suggested equality be

tween English and Indians, over time the English demonstrated that they

interpreted these relationships as subjection, not alliance.

The shift from alliance to subjection became yet more pronounced with the

arrival of English settlers in Massachusetts Bay in 1630. As they, too, began

making formal treaties with the Indians, the new settlers introduced a very

different style of subjection. Under the first treaty between the English and

five Massachusett sachems, the sachems agreed to "put ourselves, our sub

jects, lands, and estates under the government and jurisdiction of the Massa

chusets" and to "bee true and faithfull to the said government."23 This treaty

omitted any reference to the king, as did, by 1643, ail other oaths and treaties

used by Massachusetts.24 The colony's choice to downplay its connection

with royal authority reflected years of conflict between king and Parliament,

34



Subjects . . . unto the same king

which led in 1642 to the English Civil War. Massachusetts, which saw Parlia

ment's struggle as its own, justified striking the king's name from its official

oaths because Charles I had "violated the privileges of parliament, and made

war upon them, and thereby had lost much of his kingdom and many of his

subjects."25 Thus, Massachusetts's support for Parliament's war with the

crown justified them in asserting direct rule over the Indians and making the

Indians' inferior status explicit in their treaties, something that Plymouth had

been attempting in practice, if not in its written agreements.

When New Englanders organized the United Colonies' defensive compact

in 1643, Massachusetts,as the group's most powerful member, led Plymouth,

Connecticut, and New Haven in imposing direct rule over Indians. The

United Colonies sought further control over Indian chiefdoms by demanding

that they submit all grievances amongst themselves to the United Colonies'

commissioners and receive permission from them before going to war. In In

dian culture, only the chief sachems could give or withhold permission for

war; thus, by assuming this right, the United Colonies presented itself clearly as the superior in the relationship.26

Through both the United Colonies and the local colonial government, the

English of Massachusetts took great care to broadcast the Indians' inferior

status. In 1643 Narragansett sachem Pomham submitted to Massachusetts

and sought its protection from the onerous demands of Miantonomi, the

chief sachem of the Narragansetts. The magistrates questioned Pomham ex

tensively about his understanding of submission, making sure that he ac

cepted the English view of it: did he honor "parents and superiors?" they asked. The sachem replied, "It is our custom so to do, for inferiors to be sub

ject to superiors." Then, the magistrates informed Pomham, they would un

derstand "that we did not receive them in as confederates but as subjects." The colonial leaders may have asserted this hierarchy so explicitly to address

what they perceived to be an Indian questioning or misunderstanding of this

relationship. Plymouth's original treaty with the Wampanoags had implied

that Indians were "confederates" rather than "subjects." Massachusetts

leaders wanted no such assumption made here. After their discussion with

Pomham, the Massachusetts leaders held a banquet, at which Pomham and

his men dined with the governor, but at a separate table?a fitting demon

stration of the Indians' inferior status.27 Clearly, much had changed since

1631, when Massachusett sachem Chickataubut, "being in English clothes,"

dined at the governor's own table. Or even since 1641, when Narragansett

sachem Miantonomi, offended that a separate table had been set for the Indi

ans, "would eat nothing, till the governor sent him meat from his table."28

35




While the Indians treating with Massachusetts and other United Colonies

members seem to have understood English expectations that they submit to

and obey local colonial authority (a point hammered home repeatedly by the United Colonies' commissioners), many Indians resisted the English view of

submission. Like the English, these Indians wanted to preserve the peace, but

they would not accept their inferior position on the English hierarchical lad

der. In 1659, the Pocumtuck sachems of western Massachusetts politely de

clined to come to a meeting of the United Colonies commissioners to discuss

their ongoing hostilities with the Mohegans of Connecticut. In doing so, they drew explicit parallels between themselves and the English, intended to point out their equality. They were, they explained, preparing for a large meeting of

their own: "it being all one with the [United Colonies] Comissioners meet

ing." In the same message, the Pocumtucks chided the United Colonies' com

missioners for demanding their attendance: "Neither doe they know any en

gagement that lyes on them to come to the meetings of the English Sachems;

and they doe not send for the English Sachems to theire meetings." The

Pocumtucks desired English friendship and trade ("They say that as frinds

they come to the English for victualls"),, but they would not accept the Eng

lish assumption of authority over their dealings with other

Indians; "They are Resolved

not to bee beginers of any

breach with the English; and will yeild to the English in

any thinge but in makeing peace with Uncas; and that

l

they would not have the Eng

lish to pswade them to it; for

they can not have peace with

him."29 Several aspects of

this exchange are striking: the

Pocumtucks' emphasis on

friendship, which in their cul ture signified alliance, not

Interview between New England Indians ana

Gov. John Winthrop. From William Cullen Bryant, A Popular History of the United States.

subjection; and their use of English examples to make their case. They clearly saw parallels between their own structures of authority and those of the Eng

lish; however, they insisted that these structures remain separate. Pocumtuck

authority was not a lower rung on an English hierarchical ladder. It was a sep

arate ladder entirely.

36




The Narragansett and Niantic

sachems, similarly, refused to accept

the English assumption of authority. Niantic sachem Ninigret chided the

English for interfering in his conflict

with another Indian chiefdom: he

wished "the English would lett him

alone" instead of summoning him to

appear before the United Colonies

commissioners to explain his quarrel with his Montauk enemies. He as

serted his autonomy and his authority in his own sphere, "adding if youer

Governors sonne were slayne and

severall other men would you aske

Counsell of another Nation how and

when to Right youer selves. ... I doe

but Right my owne quarrell."30 The

Niantics were "another Nation,"

Ninigret declared. Like the Pocum

tucks, the Niantics desired friendship with the English, but they resented the English overstepping the bounds of friendship. Intervening in Indian

Tfce ow/y known contemporary portrait of a ijth-century New England Indian. Oil

on canvas by Charles Osgood, 1837-1838,

from an original by an unknown artist, 1681. Presumed to be an individual named

David who once saved the life of

John Winthrop, Jr. Collections of the

Massachusetts Historical Society.

wars was the prerogative of a superior, not a friend or ally. Wampanoag sachem Philip would later maintain this same position, asserting that "in

what was only between ther indians and not in towneshipes that [the English] had purchased, thay wold not have us prosecute."31 This insistence on a rela

tionship of equality put the Pocumtucks, Niantics, and Narragansetts

squarely in the pattern of the Iroquois, who likewise insisted on reciprocal re

lations with the Europeans, using the kinship term "brethren" in all their in

terchanges.32

The English had shifted the basis of their relationship with the Indians con

siderably in the first decades of settlement, The earliest treaties between Indi

ans and English promised alliance and friendship; later treaties demonstrated that the English insisted on the upper hand in the relationships Trade, and the

promise of protection from powerful enemies, continued to entice New Eng land Indians to enter and maintain ties with the English, but many of the same

Indians who accepted "submission" to English authority resisted the full Eng

37




lish interpretation of it. Instead, they held to the patterns of equal alliance

that initial treaties, past experience and association with other Indian na

tions, and English wording and behavior had originally manifested. And they were not without allies in this stance: the colony of Rhode Island, too, re

sented the assertions of power from Massachusetts Bay. Rhode Island's lead

ers encouraged the Indians in their claims of equality with the English and in

their resistance to local English authority. Like Plymouth, Rhode Island initially lacked a charter granting colony

leaders the authority to govern, and the colony was small and numerically

weak compared to Massachusetts. More significantly, the founders of the

colony had left Massachusetts as exiles, and their continuing relationship

with that colony was fraught with conflict. Pointedly excluded from the 1643

establishment of the United Colonies, Rhode Island was derided by Massa

chusetts and the other colonies as a cesspool of religious and political radi

calism that overflowed far too often for the safety and comfort of its neigh

bors. Locked in disputes with Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut,

the isolated and despised colony had little choice but to appeal to outside

powers for help. Roger Williams traveled to London in 1643 and obtained a

parliamentary patent for the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Planta

tions. John Greene, who obtained a royal charter for the colony in 1663,

made a point of securing the right to appeal to the king over any disputes with

neighbor colonies. This clause implicitly forced the other colonies to recog

nize royal appeals, a direct challenge to Massachusetts's insistence that their

charter allowed no appeal over their own authority.33 That insistence made

the colony a number of detractors in New and old England.

Keenly aware of the political troubles that Massachusetts incurred with its

assertions, Rhode Island was not above highlighting the colony's bad behav

ior?and their own comparative loyalty?in order to incline the king to favor

their petitions.34 Rhode Islander Samuel Gorton made a career of being a

thorn in Massachusetts's side. Banished from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and

two Rhode Island towns for his dangerous religious opinions, Gorton and his

followers fled to Shawomet, Rhode Island, where by 1642 he persuaded Nar

ragansett chief sachem Miantonomi to sell him land held by the sub-sachem

Pomham.35 Pomham immediately petitioned Massachusetts to take him

under the colony's protection and help him get his land back. Massachusetts

agreed and sent an armed band to root out the Gortonists, thus dispossessing

both Gorton and Miantonomi. With no local recourse against this attack, the

Gortonists sailed for London to appeal to the king, and they arranged to take

the Narragansett sachems' protests along with them.

38




The Narragansetts' grievances centered on Massachusetts's assertions of

authority over them and its repeated interference in Indian affairs. The colony had consistently sided with their enemies, the Mohegans, had refused to

allow either Indian people to go to war, had fined the Narragansetts heavily

for disobeying their orders, and then had consented to the Mohegans' execu

tion of captured Narragansett sachem Miantonomi.36 The Narragansett sachems' complaints against Massachusetts would bolster Gorton's case, and

repossessing Miantonomi would ensure that the land sold to them would stay

in their possession. Thus, what started as a minor intercolonial dispute soon

became internationalized, influencing the course of Massachusetts's relations

with the Narragansetts ever after.

On April 19, 1644, Samuel Gorton delivered a letter to Charles I of Eng land from Narragansett sachems Canonicus and Pessacus. In the letter, the

sachems submitted themselves, their land, and possessions to the king, "upon

condition of His Majesties' royal protection," his righting whatever wrongs

might be done to them, and his overthrowing their enemies. And who might those enemies be? Not "any of the natives in these parts, knowing ourselves

sufficient defence." No, the Narragansetts wanted the king's protection from

"some of His Majesty's pretended subjects"?the colony of Massachusetts,

which had repeatedly demanded the Narragansetts' subjection. The sachems

protested that, as subjects of the king, they should not be forced to "yield over

ourselves unto any, that are subjects themselves in any case; having ourselves

been the chief Sachems, or Princes successively, of the country, time out of

mind."3?

The consequences of this pledge to the king became apparent the following

month, when Massachusetts sent a letter to the Narragansett sachems order

ing them to come and take counsel over their unauthorized war with the Mo

hegans. The sachems declined to come. Pessacus and Canonicus informed the

magistrates that they had "subjected or selves, or lands, &c possessions" to

"that royal King Charles, &c that state of ould England to be ordered, & gov

rned, according to the lawes, & customes thereof." More pointedly, they em

phasized their equality with the English, "being subjects now, (& that wth

joint & voluntary consent,) unto the same king, &c state yorselves are." As

equal subjects of the king, the Narragansetts would not accept the mediation

of English colonial officials in their disputes. Both must "repair, unto that

honorable, &c just government" of the king in England.38 Ending their letter

on a conciliatory note, the sachems expressed their willingness to remain in

"friendly correspondency" with the colony?as friends, not subjects. Massachusetts officers, led by Gov. John Winthrop, responded to this let

39




John Winthrop, Sr. Oil on

canvas by Charles Osgood,

1834; copy of a portrait by an unknown artist.

Collections of the Massa

chusetts Historical Society.

ter with a collective gasp of outrage, deeply re

senting the direct challenge to their authority.

Winthrop, however, suspected that this letter ac

tually had been "written by Gorton's company." The General Court immediately directed two

messengers to the Narragansett sachems to ask

"whether they did own that letter . . . and by whose advice they had done as they wrote, and

why they would countenance and take counsel

from such evil men, and such as we had banished

from us, and to persuade them to sit still, and to

have more regard to us than such as Gorton."

The messengers only met with further humilia

tion: Canonicus refused to let them in to speak with him, leaving them to stand shivering in the

rain for two hours. Then, when Pessacus arrived,

he escorted the messengers not to the sachem's

residence but to an "ordinary wigwam" (a slight

comparable to not seating Miantonomi at the

governor's table) and insisted that, rather than

obeying Massachusetts, the Narragansetts would do as they pleased.39 The

messengers had no choice but to return home and report their failure to the

magistrates. In their eyes, the visit provided further proof of the arrogance

and intractability of the Narragansetts, a characterization the colonists re

vived during King Philip's War.

Conflict continued between the Narragansetts and Massachusetts, and be

tween Rhode Island and the other colonies, in the ensuing decades. The

United Colonies' insistence on the right to disallow war and the Indians' re

fusal to submit to such interference resulted in several English missions to try to enforce their demands. Because the United Colonies charged the expenses

of these expeditions to the offending Native parties, the Narragansetts had to

mortgage, and then lost, their land to English creditors in order to pay their

debts.40 Clearly, the Indians had reason to seek the king's aid to "right their

wrongs" and "protect them from their enemies." In 1664, they got their

chance.

In that year, newly restored King Charles II sent four royal commissioners

to New England in response to many complaints against Massachusetts, in

cluding some from the Narragansett sachems. Politically, the colony had en

tered an especially dangerous period. It had openly supported the English

40



Subjects . .. unto the same king93

Commonwealth government and harbored two of the men who participated in the trial and execution of Charles I. These actions gave the new king ample reason to view Massachusetts as a rebellious colony. Its leaders rightly feared

that the crown would revoke the Massachusetts charter. The fact that Narra

gansett complaints appeared among the chief abuses the royal commissioners

listed against Massachusetts strongly suggests that the Indians recognized the

colony's political vulnerability and exploited the opportunity to present their

grievances directly to the king.41 Through such skillful tactics, the Indians

highlighted their own status as loyal, obedient subjects and increased the

chances that their complaints would be remedied.

The 1664 visit of Charles IPs royal commissioners substantiates the effec

tiveness of Indian appeals to the king. The commissioners visited the sachems

in their own land, announced the abrogation of all their debt to Massachu

setts, and then, much to the horror of Massachusetts, placed the Narra

gansetts directly under the authority of the king. Shortly after the royal commissioners departed, the Narragansetts' behavior, according to Massa

chusetts, took an alarming turn. While the "salvage natives bordering upon

this &c other his majesties colonies . . . have beene principally awed by the

Massachusets," the magistrates now found "that awe turned into contempt

by their unwonted, proud, &c insolent words & deeds" against persons and

colonies. Travelers among the Indians reported such taunts as, "Whence are

you? Of the Massachusets?" The magistrates complained that to the formerly submissive Indians "Massachusets men are all but as a strawe, bloune away

wthout breath ... so that this bridle taken of[f], what else could be expected but trouble from them, especially seeing there were intimations that it was oc

casioned from some words & acting of the [royal] commissioners . . . whit

tingly or unwittingly, God knowes."42 In a letter to the king in July 1665, the

Massachusetts General Court further complained that the royal commission

ers had publicly derided the United Colonies, which had served as the liaison to the Indians, as "that usurped authority." Fearful of growing Indian as

sertiveness, they lamented the "causeless complaints from Indians receaved

St countenanced, in so much that the very carriage &C deportment of many of

the heathen is changed towards us."43

New England colony records do not mention royal commissioner visits to

other Indian groups, but some of those who failed to receive a personal visit

nevertheless saw the potential of appealing over the heads of colonial offi

cials. When Mohegan sachem Uncas complained to Connecticut magistrates of a long-unsettled dispute over land, he warned that he could follow a simi

lar course, "Wherefore he is weary of such Court attendance, intimating that

41




if... there be no effectual course taken for a faire &c just issue, he then shalbe

enforced to apply himselfe unto King Charles his Commissioners for

releife."44 Maine Indians, too, saw advantage in appealing to the commis

sioners. Royal Commissioner George Cartwright reported to the king that an

Indian sachem near the headwaters of the Merrimack River had petitioned to

be taken under the king's protection, like the Narragansetts.45 Not only did Indians appeal to the king to support them in their disputes

with the local English, but they used royal authority as a lever in their disputes with other Indians. Although the Narragansetts were, apparently, the only In

dian group to petition the king directly, they were not the only Indian group

the commissioners visited. Philip of the Wampanoags appealed to the royal

commissioners to help resolve a dispute between himself and the Narra

gansetts over land at Mount Hope. The commissioners declared in Philip's

favor, confirming the lands to him in the name of the king.46 Philip also at

Philip, sachem of the Wampanoags. From Samuel Gardner Drake,

History and Antiquities of Boston.

tempted to use the royal commissioners to

undermine Narragansett and Niantic au

thority outside his territory. In a 1666 letter

penned by Philip's scribe John Sassamon,

one Eliese Pokonoahkit (probably Philip) instructed the Montauk Indians not to pay

tribute to Ninigret, who was coming to col

lect it, until "the honoured Commission

ers" could hear and judge Ninigret's claim

to it.47 The visit of the royal commissioners

likely made an impression on Massachusett

sachem Josiah Wampatuck as well. When

his counsellors complained to English au

thorities that the sachem had not obtained

their permission to sell some land in the

Blue Hills to Englishman Richard Thayer, Wampatuck made out a deed in Plymouth

Colony Court conveying his land to King Charles II, promising him a yearly payment

of five pounds (collectible from Richard Thayer) and craving his protection.48

Wampatuck used direct appeal to royal authority to subvert both Indian au

thority and local English power for his own benefit. In the decade following the royal commissioners' visit, New England Indi

ans found themselves alone with the English: the 1664 English conquest of

the Dutch and their great distance from the French had removed any rival al

42



Subjects . . . unto the same king"

liances they could have turned to their advantage. Given the narrowing of the

political field, the Indians' only recourse against the English, short of armed

resistance, was to appeal directly to the king. The Narragansetts,

Wampanoags, and Mohegans all used this strategy in 1665, and particularly in the case of the Narragansetts, they clung to the hope that royal authority

made them fellow subjects and equals?hence able to accept or reject the de

mands?of the English.

Ninigret revealed the Narragansetts' and Niantics' persistent attachment

to this line of authority when he spoke before the Rhode Island Council in

1669. He affirmed that he had maintained loyalty

ever since himselfe heard the words by the Commissioners, spoken as

from King Charles his mouth, and hath since laid it up in his heart that

the King did looke upon himselfe and Sucquansh [Pessacus] and their In

dians as his subjects, together with the English; and said hee understood

that the English of this Colony were to help them, if any should bee too

mighty for them, and they to doe the like to the English if any should in

vade or make war upon the Colony.

The Narragansetts and Niantics were royal subjects "together with the Eng

lish," not beneath them. The Pequots, Ninigret pointed out for contrast,

"paid tribute to the English, being overcome of them." Likewise, he had con

quered the Montauk Indians, who now paid tribute to him, "even as the Pe

quits did the like" to the English.49 The Narragansetts and Niantics were na

tions, like the English, able to conquer and exact tribute. They owed

allegiance to the king and only friendship to his other subjects. Later the same

year, royal commissioner Samuel Maverick reported on Massachusetts's most

recent demand for back tribute the Narragansett sachems owed: "they [Nar

ragansetts] payed them [Massachusetts] not, telling them they would pay

King Charles and none else."50

The Wampanoags appeared far less frequently than the Narragansetts in

United Colonies records before 1665; that changed after Wampanoag sachem

Philip met with the royal commissioners and received confirmation of his

lands, as if from the king himself.51 Evidence that Philip's thinking about the

advantages of appealing to royal authority may have mirrored Ninigret's ap

pears in a 1671 near-outbreak of Indian-English violence in Plymouth, a pre

lude to King Philip's War.52 Philip was forced to answer for his hostile actions

before officials from Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, who

charged him with misrepresenting his status by stating that his subjection to

Plymouth constituted nothing more than "naighborly and frindly correspon

43




dency."53 The phrase echoes Pessacus's and Canonicus's letter to Massachu

setts twenty-five years earlier, in which they denied the colony's jurisdiction over them, claiming that both they and the English were now "subjects . . .

unto the same king." Compelled to give up his arms and resubmit to English

authority, Philip protested that "The Governour [of Plymouth] was but a

Subject, and ... he would not Treat except his Brother King Charles of Eng

land were there. "54

These words provide a key to Philips's actions during King Philip's War,

shaped in part at least by his interpretation of royal authority. The war, which

raged in New England from June 1675 to April 1678, was prompted by long

standing Indian grievances against English infringements on their land and

authority. Before war broke out, Philip met with John Easton and other offi

cials from Rhode Island and laid out his complaints, which Easton later linked to Massachusetts's and Plymouth's attempts to assert their authority

over surrounding Indians. Easton sent his account of the war, with its accu

sations against Massachusetts and Plymouth, to New York's royal governor,

Edmund Andros. He also may have sent copies of the narrative to England,

proving to authorities that, contrary to Massachusetts's repeated protests, the

colonies, not the Indians, bore responsibility for the conflict.55

Coming on the heels of this declaration of grievances, Philip's resort to war

suggested that he believed force was necessary to combat English affronts to

Indian sovereignty that talk had so long failed to remedy. Hostilities began in

Swansea, where Indians fired on and looted some local English houses. Mis

chief escalated quickly to outright war, and Plymouth called on its United

Colonies allies, Massachusetts and Connecticut, to assist them. The fight soon spread, drawing in the Nipmuck Indians of Massachusetts by August, the Pocumtucks by September, and, by December, the powerful Narragansett

Indians. Indians held the upper hand through the winter of 1676, but by

spring disease, starvation, and the deaths of some critical leaders weakened

and disheartened the Indians. Many began surrendering to English govern

ments in the summer of 1676. Philip himself was killed in August, and by the

autumn, there was peace in southern New England. The war continued an

other two years in New Hampshire and Maine, drawing forces and draining resources from Massachusetts to defend its northern provinces. The war,

which weakened Massachusetts significantly, paved the way for royal inter

vention that, by 1685, would transform the colony from a "holy common

wealth" to a royal province.56

While Philip could not have foreseen the specific impact of the war on the

English, he deliberately sought royal intervention on his own behalf during

44




the war. Philip's flight to New York in the winter of 1676 suggests that he saw

royal power as a shield against local English authorities. Philip probably chose New York for his winter refuge because he knew he could meet with the

powerful Mohawk Indians, whom he hoped to persuade to join him in his

fight against the English.57 But New York may also have appealed to him as

the home of the only royal governor in New England?Edmund Andros,

whom Philip may have seen as another source of assistance.

Philip knew Andros's name and authority from at least one earlier incident.

When Philip met with John Easton and other officials from Rhode Island,

they recommended that he submit his grievances to an outside mediator, someone unlikely to side with Plymouth, as Massachusetts and Connecticut

had in 1671. That mediator was Governor Andros. Like many Rhode Is

landers before them, Easton's delegation explicitly encouraged Philip to see

royal authority as separate from and even opposed to Plymouth's and Mass

achusetts's authority; the Wampanoags, they explained, "having submited to

our king to protect them others dared not otherwise to molest them."58

Rhode Island had stayed out of the fracas of 1671, earning Philip's accolade: "

[he] had litell Case to doute but that to us [Rhode Island] under the king thay wold have yelded to our determenations in what ani should have Cumplained

. . . against them." Apparently, Philip saw Rhode Island, with its seal of ap

proval from the royal commissioners, as a more likely source of justice than

the United Colonies.59 Perhaps Andros, too, appeared to be someone from

whom he could receive assistance, or at least someone who would not attack

him while he gathered his strength. Andros's status as a royal governor itself may have suggested New York as

a place of refuge to Philip. The royal commissioners of 1664-1665 had en

couraged both the Wampanoags and the Narragansetts to make their sub

missions directly to the king or to the commissioners in his stead. With the

commissioners gone, Andros represented the closest approximation of royal

authority. News of Andros's initial negotiations for the establishment of a

league of peace, the "covenant chain," between the Iroquois and the English in New York may also have reached Philip, giving him reason to hope that

Andros might consider an alliance with him as well.60

It would be surprising if the astute Philip were not also aware of the ten

sions between New York and the New England colonies, particularly its bor

der disputes with Connecticut. A flare-up in that dispute likely went a long

way toward convincing Philip that New York would be a safe haven, even a

potential ally. On June 28, 1675, days after war broke out in Plymouth, An

dros sent a fleet of four ships to the mouth of the Connecticut River. There,

45




the ships raised the flag of the Duke of York and remained in siege outside

Saybrook for several days. Connecticut authorities well knew what Andros

wanted: in behalf of the Duke of York, whose patent overlapped Connecti

cut's, Andros had previously demanded surrender of all lands between the

Connecticut and Hudson Rivers, and he had reiterated the demand as re

cently as June 1675. Such surrender would mean the virtual extinction of

Connecticut, whose major towns, including Hartford, lay on the western

shores of the river. Connecticut refused to allow Andros to land, in spite of his

protestations that he had come to offer help in the "trobells wth the Indi

ans."61 Scorning this claim, Samuel Symonds of Massachusetts wrote to Con

necticut's governor John Winthrop, Jr. "If a man pretends frendship, & to

helpe against the Indians," he wrote, "you will consider how his accions sute

with his words, and act accordingly."62 If Philip or other Indians knew of this

standoff, it could only have strengthened the idea, nurtured by the royal

commissioners, that the colonies of New England were in royal disfavor and

could look for no help from the king or his royal governor.

Whether Philip and his allies knew of this inter-English struggle or not, Connecticut's leaders believed the Indians knew about it and that it helped in

cite their hostilities. The Connecticut Council complained bitterly of Andros's

invasion "with some considerable force" into Connecticut, an attack partic

ularly unwelcome at a time "when the heathen rage against the English and

by fire and sword have destroyed many of his Ma [jes] ties good subjects, our

neighbours of Plimouth Colony, and still are carrying their heads about the

countrey as trophies of their good success." The Connecticut Council de

clared Andros's invasion illegal and criminally opportunistic: "his ... actions

in this juncture tend to the incouraging of the heathen to proceed in the effu

sion of Christian blood, which may be very like to be the consequences of his

^^^^Iff^? '"w^:%~v^'fe?-- *-S?^M[^^^H

^^HF '' \ IPfc* ' f If 1- ; / "'< VB

^^m^'^-'"-"'m, i * \ -f *

--ii'' fP"..?Nia**. ?

European traders selling arms to the Indians.

From Bryant, Popular

History of the United

States.

46




actions, and which wee shall unavoydably lay at his dore."63

If, by fleeing to the royal colony of New York, Philip hoped to take advan

tage of the conflicts between New York and New England, he had good rea

son. Andros openly displayed his disdain for the independent-minded colonies of New England. In an exchange between Sir John Werden, secretary to the Duke of York, and Andros, Werden urged Andros to prevent sales of

powder to any of the Indians at war with New England, adding snidely,

"though their neighbour Christians deserve small courtesy, yet still their

being Christians makes it charity not to furnish their enemies with opportu

nity to hurt them."64 Royalist distaste for the United Colonies did not go so

far as to back the Indians against them, and Andros did send powder to assist

in defense?but to Rhode Island, not to any member of the United Colonies.

Later, in response to a request from Massachusetts governor John Leverett

and repeated pestering from Connecticut, Andros agreed to ask local Mo

hawks to refrain from assisting Philip in the war.65 Nevertheless, Philip re

mained safely in Andros's colony for months.

The chief contemporary chroniclers of King Philip's War, William Hub

bard and Increase Mather, both claimed that hundreds of hostile Indians had

sought refuge in New York. Hubbard recorded an Indian captive's testimony

that over 250 warriors, plus women and children, had fled to Albany where

they received shelter from the Mahican Indians.66 John Pynchon of Spring

field, who was in a better position to know the Indians' movements than

Hubbard of Ipswich, reported that "The body of them is drawn off toward

Albany, where they are harbored under Andros... . We shall be in danger to

be continually disturbed if he do harbor our enemies in his government."67

Captive Indians even testified that the Mohawks, traditional enemies of many

of the New England Indians, had wanted to attack the Pocumtucks who fled

Springfield "but the Governour of New-York secured them."68 Though An

dros had banned sales of powder to the Indians, that had not kept them from

finding ample supplies.69 Captured Indians testified that powder came from

Albany, chiefly from Dutch merchants who ignored the ban on sales to hos

tile Indians.70 With or without Andros's direct complicity, Indians obtained

what they needed: bullets, powder, and security. Clearly, Indians saw royal

authority as an effective lever in their disputes with colonial authorities. Past

successes probably encouraged Indian leaders to believe the king would al

ways support them, emboldening them to resist English invasion of their ter

ritory and interference with native governance. Any hope that the king would

favor them over his other subjects, however, would meet with disappoint ment.

47




As soon as hostilities began, the English colonists across New England demonstrated their inclination to view all Indians who had challenged or cir

cumvented their authority as enemies. The Narragansetts' story exemplifies how appeals to the crown altered New English perceptions and actions.

Among the Indians, the Narragansetts had the longest history of appealing di

rectly to the king, dating from their 1644 submission to King Charles I. At the

time, this action greatly alarmed colonial leaders, and their suspicion of the

Narragansetts grew dramatically in succeeding years. Despite a Narragansett

promise to remain neutral in King Philip's War, many English saw them as a

perilous threat. This reflected the Narragansetts' status as the largest and

most powerful group of Indians in the region. Undoubtedly, it also reflected

their history of resisting English authority and of joining their efforts with men such as Samuel Gorton and Roger Williams, themselves banished from

the Massachusetts colony. The very name some contemporaries attached to

the war signals their fear of the Narragansetts. Only forty years after the war

ended did anyone call it "King Philip's War." Contemporaries usually used

some version of "the Indian War" or "the Narragansett War." Joshua Scot

tow, who served as a captain in the war in Maine, referred to the war exclu

sively as "the Narragansett War" in his 1694 history of the Bay Colony, fail

ing to mention either Philip or the Wampanoags at all.71 Boston merchant

Richard Wharton identified the enemy as "the Narragansetts" only; he com

plained in February 1676 that if the English had provided the supplies so des

perately needed, "the Narragansets had been utterly subdued."72 When Ply mouth messenger James Brown named the six Indian tribes he claimed were

"flock[ing]" to Philip, the "Narrogansets" appeared first on the list.73 This

preoccupation with the Narragansetts, who did not enter the war until the

English attacked them in December 1675, rather than the Wampanoags, who

initiated hostilities, grew out of long-standing English distrust of a people who had challenged their authority for half a century.

In a dramatic demonstration of their view that the Indians were not their

equals but disloyal subordinates, English officials claimed that hostile Indians had committed treason. Massachusetts colonist Nathaniel Saltonstall, who

published three short accounts of the war in London, made a point of claim

ing that the Indians' uprising constituted treason. One of his accounts quoted the 1621 peace treaty between Plymouth and Philip's father, Massasoit, with

his promise "That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of

our people."74 The same account cited Massasoit's and Philip's reconfirma

tion of the terms of this treaty in 1639 and 1662. Saltonstall also noted that

the captured Narragansett sachem Canonchet was drawn and quartered?

48




traditional punishment for traitors. Capt. Benjamin Church, whose troops

captured Philip, related that the Wampanoag sachem later suffered the same

treatment.75

Ironically, though Rhode Island had supported the Narragansett challenge to Massachusetts's authority, it joined the other English colonies in charging

hostile Indians with treason following King Philip's War. For over thirty

years, through such men as John Easton and Samuel Gorton, Rhode Island

had encouraged Indian sachems to view themselves as equal subjects of the

king, possessing the same status as the highest ranking colonial officials. Nev

ertheless, Rhode Island tried ten or more Indians for treason in August 1676.

The court declared that the Indians had "rebelliously adheared to Indians of

another Collony called Plymoth, namely, Philip chiefe Sachem of the Indians in that said Collony" who had murdered "many of his said majesty s good

Subjects." For these acts, Rhode Island condemned the convicted traitors as

"Rebell[s] in the Face of the Court" and executed them.76 The court failed to

mention that the Indians were also his majesty's subjects. Rhode Island's

wartime actions, specifically the executions for treason, demonstrate that the

colony had given past assistance not to further Indian-English equality but to

bolster its own quest for authority against Massachusetts.

Fresh from his audience with the king in 1677, Indian John Wompas stirred the same colonial anxieties over royal undermining of local authority.

When he goaded Cambridge residents as "not legal subjects to his majesty,"

he rubbed the noses of English officials in the scandal of their ongoing bound

ary disputes, crowing that they had no business sending soldiers to the long contested territory of Maine, where King Philip's War was still raging. Just as

Massachusetts saw the Narragansetts as a perilous threat, its leaders claimed

that Wompas was "justly to be suspected of conspiring with the Enemy

[against] us."77 Undoubtedly, invoking royal authority made Wompas much

more alarming than his misbehavior alone would have.

By appealing directly to the king, both Wompas and the Narragansetts

helped undermine Massachusetts's standing with the crown by focusing un

welcome attention on the colony's apparently unjust dealings with the Indi

ans. That such Englishmen as Samuel Gorton appealed to the king as a way

of challenging Massachusetts's authority should not surprise us. That Indians

used the same methods, and that they used them at times when Massachusetts

was particularly vulnerable, suggests a high degree of political astuteness and

knowledge of colonial politics. Any number of outcomes demonstrate how

well the Indians used this tool, including the words of Edward Randolph, the

king's agent, after he visited Massachusetts in 1676. Randolph cited the In

49




dian war as evidence that the colony abused the Indians and bore responsi

bility for provoking hostilities.78 The colony's treatment of their Indian neigh bors and skillful Indian handling of royal authority contributed, by 1683, to

the revocation of the Massachusetts charter and establishment of direct royal

government in the colony. In the end, appeals to the king failed to secure lasting Indian power in the

region. The Indians could not have known that, contrary to the protestations of John Easton and others, the king would not support them against his Eng lish subjects. Nonetheless, the choice to appeal was a rational one, demon

strating an astute understanding of English political systems and the ability to

use these for their own purposes. For a time, Indians did acquire power and a

lever against overbearing English authorities. No wonder, then, that during

King Philip's War contemporaries equated the Indian threat with the royal

threat, lamenting, "we [have] greatly incensed [God] to stir up many Adver

saries against us, not only abroad, but also at our own Doors."79 And no

wonder the embattled English responded so fiercely to the threat closest at

hand.

Notes

I would like to thank Daniel Richter, Neal Salisbury, Alice Nash, Mark Choate, and the editors of the MHR for helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this arti

cle, and Jane Kamensky and David Hackett Fischer for long-standing encourage ment and direction.

i. Suffolk Court Files, #1642, Massachusetts Archives (hereafter cited as MA), Co

lumbia Point, Mass.

2. Daniel Meade and Hannah Meade depositions, Oct. 8, 1677, Collection yj,

Autographs of Special Note, Box 1, Maine Historical Society, Portland, Maine.

Wompas was committed to prison in Cambridge for his reproachful speeches,

threatening the life of an English woman, and trying to sell land?English and In

dian?he had no legal right to. He escaped from prison on October 1, 1677, and

died not long thereafter. Middlesex Court Records (David Pulsifer transcript),

3:192, MA. The courts were dealing with the tangled aftermath of Wompas's land

sales as late as 1681, when a group of Christian Indians petitioned to have Wom

pas's sales revoked. Massachusetts Archives Collection (hereafter cited as MAC), vol. 30:260a, MA.

3. See, for example, David Cressy, Coming Over: Migration and Communication be

tween England and New England in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Eng.,

1987); David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Pour British Folkways in America (Ox

ford, 1989); Michael Leroy Oberg, Dominion and Civility: English Imperialism and

5?




Native America, 1585-1685 (Ithaca, 1999); and Martin Daunton and Rick

Halpern, eds., Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples,

1600-1850 (Philadelphia, 1999).

4. From quite different perspectives, the works of Alden Vaughan, Francis Jennings,

James Axtell, and Neal Salisbury helped shape the development of Indian history in

the last generation. Building on the foundation of these writers are Kathleen A.

Bragdon's reexamination of precontact Indian culture, Native People of Southern

New England (Norman, Ok., 1996); James Drake's study of the breakdown of ties

of interdependence between English and Indian, King Philip's War: Civil War in New

England (Amherst, 1999); Ann Marie Plane's study of the parallel influences of In

dian ways of marriage and the progress of English dominance, Colonial Intimacies:

Indian Marriage in Early New England (Ithaca, 2000); and Daniel K. Richter's

reimagination of English and Indian interaction in early America from an Indian

perspective, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America

(Cambridge, Mass., 2001).

5. Colin Calloway, The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America

(Boston, 1994), 79 6. Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America (1643; Bedford, Mass., n.d.),

141.

7. Bragdon, Native People, 46, 141-155. See also Williams, A Key into the Language,

140-145; and Edward Winslow, Good Newes from New England: A True relation of

things very remarkable at the plantation ofPlimoth in New England (1624; Bedford,

Mass., n.d.), 61-62.

8. Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle, eds., The Journal of John

Winthrop, 1630-1649 (cited hereafter as JWJ) (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), 459;

Bragdon, Native People, 145-147; Alden T. Vaughan, New England Frontier: Puri

tans and Indians, 1620-1675, 3d ed. (Norman, 1995), 221.

9. See Lawrence H. Leder, ed., The Livingston Indian Records, 1666-1723 (Stan

fordville, N.Y., 1979), 33, 39; and William N. Fenton, "Structure, Continuity and

Change in the Process of Iroquois Treaty Making," in The History and Culture of

Iroquois Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Guide to the Treaties of the Six Nations and

Their League, ed. Francis Jennings (Syracuse, 1985), 6.

10. See Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (cited hereafter

as RICR) (Providence, 1856), 1:138; Roger Williams to the General Court of Mass

achusetts, Oct. 5, 1654, in RICR, 1:291-297; and Daniel K. Richter, Ordeal of the

Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization

(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), 136, 155. 11. "Lieutenant Lion Gardener His Relation of the Pequot Warres [1660]," in Collec

tions of the Massachusetts Historical Society (cited hereafter as MHSC), 3d ser., vol. 3

(1833): I53-I55 12. Nathaniel Morton, New England's Memorial, in Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers

(New York, 1936), 38.

13. Winslow, Good Newes from New England, 13-14.

51




14. See, for example, Winslow's visit to Massasoit in 1621, in which he took "some

gratuity to bind [Massasoit] the faster unto them." William Bradford, Of Plymouth

Plantation, 1620-1647, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York, 1952), 87.

15. Morton, New England's Memorial, 38-39.

16. David Pulsifer, ed., Records of Plymouth Colony (cited hereafter as PCR) (1859; New York, 1968), 1:133, 4:24-26, 5:76. The nine sachems were Ohquamehud,

Nattawahunt, Quadaquina, Cawnacome, Caunbatant, Huttmoiden, Obbatinnua,

Chikkatabak, and Appannow. Morton, New England's Memorial, 44-45.

17. Dwight B. Heath, ed., Mourfs Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (Bed

ford, Mass., 1963), 66.

18. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 87; Heath, Mourfs Relation, 58; Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England,

1500-1643 (New York, 1982), 116.

19. "Gardener's Relation," 153-155.

20. By the time of King Philip's War, both Plymouth and Massachusetts assumed the

Narragansetts were under Massachusetts's authority, dating back to the 1636

treaty between Massachusetts and the Narragansetts that made them allies in the

Pequot War. JWJ, 191. Rhode Island, the colony in which the Narragansetts lived,

disagreed.

21. The Mayflower Compact, which likewise asserted the Pilgrims' subjection to King

James, was entered into after early evidence of "faction" among the immigrants,

leading to the conclusion that, lacking a patent, some sort of compact of govern

ment was needed to preserve order. Citing their connection to their "dread sover

eign" was one way to undergird their uncertain authority. Heath, Mourfs Relation,

17-18.

22. PCR, 5:76.

23. Submission of the Massachusetts sub-tribes to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Mar.

8, 1644, in Vaughan, New England Frontier, 342.

24. Connecticut, founded by settlers from Massachusetts, followed the same pattern. In

contrast to its neighbor colonies, Rhode Island, whose settlers were religious and

political dissidents from Massachusetts, openly proclaimed its loyalty to the king

throughout this period.

25. J. Hammond Trumbull, ed., Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut (Hartford,

1852), i:25;/W7,432. 26. See the Aug. 27,1645, treaty between the United Colonies and the Narragansett In

dians, reprinted in Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 437-440. Winslow, who had

close contact with the Wampanoags and other tribes in the region, stated that the

Indians' "sachims cannot be all called kings, but only some few of them, to whom

the rest resort for protection, and pay homage unto them; neither may they war

without their knowledge and approbation." Good Newes, 61-62.

27. JWJ, 458-461.

2$. JWJ, 47, 410-411.

29. PCR, 10:221.

52




30. PCR, 10:125.

31. John Easton, "A Relaci?n of the Indyan Warre," in Narratives of the Indian Wars,

1675-1699, ed. Charles H. Lincoln (New York, 1913), 7-17.

32. See, for example, the Iroquois' refusal to address the English governor of New York

as "Father," insisting that they "Let the old covenant that was made with our an

cestors be kept firm. . . . Then we were called Brethren" (quoted in Richter, Facing East from Indian Country, 148). While we cannot know how long this pattern had

been in use among the Iroquois, the first recorded treaty between the Iroquois and

the Dutch in 1645 clearly shows the Iroquois using the reciprocal kinship term

"brethren" for the Dutch. Jennings, History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy, 129.

While both the English and French attempted to impose a more hierarchical rela

tionship on the Iroquois, in which they were the "fathers" and the Indians "chil

dren," both were unsuccessful.

33. Joseph Henry Smith, Appeals to the Privy Council from the American Plantations

(New York, 1950), 45, 51-53. More pressing political business, which culminated

in his execution in 1649, led Charles I to set the Massachusetts charter business

aside. Immediately after the Restoration in 1660, Charles II seemed unaware that

the charter had almost been vacated and, in response to Massachusetts's 1662 re

quest, he confirmed it. Political enemies of Massachusetts quickly brought the king

up to speed on the colony's past abuses, so that by the decade of the 1670s, when

Wompas appeared before the king, the 1637 quo warranto was dredged up fre

quently in the ongoing proceedings against the Massachusetts charter.

34. For example, Rhode Island made a point of using the king's name in all its official

oaths and orders and at the opening of its court sessions, something the other

colonies, with the occasional exception of Plymouth, let lapse. And Rhode Islanders

with complaints against Massachusetts frequently added into their letters and peti tions such pointed comparisons of the two colonies as the claim that Rhode Island

was "ready to assent and yeeld all obedience to [the king's] supreme authority, not

making our Pattents a cloak for contempt, or warrant to disobey and oppose his

Roy all commands." Randall Holden and John Greene to the Committee of Trade

and Plantations (1679), in RICR, 3:62.

35. Philip F. Gura, "The Radical Ideology of Samual Gorton: New Light on the Rela

tion of English to American Puritanism," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 36

(1979): 80-83.

3 6. While the political body carrying out these actions was the United Colonies, rather

than Massachusetts, the Narragansetts wrote and spoke as if it were the colony.

This was likely because Massachusetts was the most powerful member of the con

federation and because Massachusetts's 1636 treaty with the Narragansetts made

them the colony to whom the Narragansetts were subject. For an account of these

events, see Salisbury, Manitou and Providence, 228-235.

37. RICR, 1:133.

38. PCR, 10:415-416.

39- JWJ, 509.

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40. MAC, vol. 30:83, MA.

41. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachu

setts Bay in New England (cited hereafter as MCR) (Boston, 1854), vol. 4, pt. 2,

15 8-161. In addition to the Narragansetts' 1644 submission to the king and their

post-1660 petitions mentioned by the royal commissioners, the Narragansetts sent

the king a petition in the care of Roger Williams in the early 1650s, asking the king to protect them from overzealous Christian Indian missionaries. Roger Williams to

the General Court of Massachusetts, Oct. 5, 1654, in RICR, 1:291-297.

42. MCR, vol. 4, pt. 2, 233.

43. MCR, vol. 4, pt. 2, 234, 274-275.

44. William Leete and Robert Chapman to the Governor and Assistants of Connecti

cut, June 30, 1665, in MHSC, 4th ser., vol. 7:556.

45. W. Noel Sainsbury, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series (i860; Vaduz,

1964), 5:347, item #1103.

46. Glenn W. LaFantasie, ed., The Correspondence of Roger Williams, 2 vols. (Provi

dence, 1988), 2:577-579^

47. Calendar of State Papers, 5:380, item #1197. As the commissioners of the United

Colonies did not meet from 1664 to 1667, and then on a drastically limited scale, the commissioners referred to are probably royal. Royal Commissioners Robert

Carr and Samuel Maverick were still in Boston until March 1666. See also Corre

spondence of Roger Williams, 2:59911.

48. MAC, Oct. 4, 1666, vol. 30:131-132, MA. See also MAC, vol. 30:72, 73, and

275a.

49. RICR, 2:269. The Council had called Ninigret to answer for the report that he was

planning to draw other Indian nations into a combination to cut off the English, and that seven of Philip of the Wampa'noags' ancient men had been in council with

him for over a week. Ninigret denied any such plot, supplied acceptable excuses,

and pledged his loyalty, doing so according to the direct line of submission he had

insisted on since the royal commissioners' visit.

50. Samuel Maverick, in Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New

York, ed. John Romeyn Brodhead (Albany, 1853), 3:182.

51. Correspondence of Roger Williams, 2:579.

52. This crisis contains an incident similar to the one described above, in which the

Pocumtucks resisted English assumptions of superiority over Indians. Two English

messengers, James Walker and James Brown, arrived at Mt. Hope, Philip's "seat," to ask why the Indians were preparing for war. When Brown attempted to speak

with Philip, the sachem knocked the man's hat from his head, an "incivillity" that

was laid to Philip's charge later. It is striking that Philip aimed at the hat. Quakers were frequently upbraided in New England courts for refusing to remove their hats, evidence that they did not honor authority. Brown certainly would have removed

his hat to stand before the governor and council, but he did not remove it before the

Indian sachem. So Philip, like the magistrates at court, removed it for him. Here, once again, we see the clash of English and Indian expectations. Philip expected to

54




be treated with honor, as befit his station, but even English messengers refused, or

did not think, to give it. And when Philip insisted on his due, they accused him of

incivility and insubordination. James Walker to Governor Prince, Sept. i, 1671,

Winslow family II papers, Massachusetts Historical Society (cited hereafter as

MHS), Boston, Mass, (reprinted in MHSC, ist ser., vol. 6:197).

53. PCR, 5:77-79'

54. Italics added. Nathaniel Saltonstall's "A Continuation of the State of New England,

1676," contains a letter on the rebellion of black slaves in Barbados. The unidenti

fied writer refers to this claim, made by Philip before the governor in Boston. As

Philip never appeared before the governor during King Philip's War, Charles Lin

coln attributes this phrase to his 1671 visit. Charles H. Lincoln, ed., Narratives of the Indian Wars, 1675-1699 (New York, 1913), 71. Apparently, Philip's father

Massasoit considered the king a "brother" as well. The sachem's 19th-century de

scendant, Zerviah Gould Mitchell, reported that Massasoit treasured a silver pipe sent to him by King James, his "white brother over the sea." William Simmons,

Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore, 1620-1984 (Hanover,

N.H., 1986), 124.

It is worth noting that on the eve of war in 1675, when Plymouth's Governor

Prince demanded that Philip appear before him, Philip sent a letter of refusal by an

other member of the infamous Gorton family, Samuel Gorton, Jr. Gorton and his

father were no happier about the war than any other English colonists, but his pres ence with Philip indicates a past relationship, during which the same ideas that lay at the foundation of the Narragansetts' resistance to local English authority may have been nourished. Samuel Gorton, Jr., to Josiah Winslow, late June 1675, Mis

cellaneous Bound Manuscripts, MHS.

55. Easton, "A Relaci?n of the Indyan Warre," 17. I am indebted to Jill Lepore for

telling me about the copy of Easton's account in the New York State Archives. Fran

cis Jennings uses Easton's account to bolster his interpretation of the war as an Eng

lish opportunity for "easy plunder." He acknowledges, however, that any English

hopes for such an outcome were disappointed. The Invasion of America: Indians,

Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (New York, 1976), 297-325.

56. For a still-valuable, detailed overview of King Philip's War, see Douglas Edward

Leach, Flintlock and Tomahawk: New England in King Philip's War (1958; Hyannis, Mass., 1995). For more recent accounts, see James D. Drake, King Philip's War:

Civil War in New England, 1675-1676 (Amherst, Mass., 1999), ana< Jill Lepore, The

Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity (New York,

1998).

57. Drake, King Philip's War, 122.

58. Easton, "A Relaci?n of the Indyan Warre," 10.

59. The royal commissioners appointed Rhode Island, which the king had praised for

graciously receiving his agents, to act in the stead of the commissioners after they returned to England. This gave them the right to represent the king to the Indians

in their area and to have jurisdiction over the "King's Province," the long-disputed

55




Narragansett lands. Easton, "A Relaci?n of the Indyan Warre," 17; Calendar of

State Papers, 5:341-350, item #1103. For a detailed account of the royal commis

sioners' visit, see Paul Lucas, "Colony or Commonwealth: Massachusetts Bay,

1661-1666," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., vol. 24 (1967): 88-107. Philip's

willingness to meet with Rhode Island, at the same time he had refused to meet with

Plymouth, is added evidence that he saw the former as a more likely source of jus tice. For Philip's refusal to meet with Plymouth, see Samuel Gorton, Jr., to Josiah

Winslow, late June 1675, Miscellaneous Bound Manuscripts, MHS; and Benjamin Batten to Sir Thomas Allin, June 29-July 6, 1675, in Calendar of State Papers,

9:251, item #614. Batten notes that, on June 23, 1675, Plymouth sent three

"plenipotentiaries with three attendants" to treat with Philip, who refused to meet

them.

60. Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence (New York,

1984), 298, 356. One poignant incident in November 1675 suggests that seeing the

king as a refuge had spread beyond the Indian sachems to their followers. In that

month, a group of captive Indians was brought before the Massachusetts General

Court to be examined before being sold out of the country. Among them was a

Wampanoag woman who made the special request that she be sent to "King Charles his country." MHS photostats, Nov. 5, 1675, MHS.

61. Thomas Stanton, Sr., to [Waite?] Winthrop, July 11,1675, Winthrop family papers, MHS.

62. Samuel Symonds to John Winthrop, Jr., July 14, 1675, m MHSC, 4th ser., vol.

7:136.

63. Order of the Connecticut Council, July 10, 1675, in Public Records of the Colony of

Connecticut, 2:260-262.

64. Sir John Werden to Major Andros, Aug. 31, 1676, in Calendar of State Papers,

9:445, item #1024.

65. See Edmund Andros to Governor Leverett, Oct. 16, 1675, in MAC, vol. 68:17, MA. Andros claims the Mohawks would not assist Philip and his allies. Leverett's

answer is in shorthand. See also PCR, 10:453.

66. William Hubbard, The History of the Indian Wars in New England from the First Set

tlement to the Termination of the War with King Philip, in 1677, ed. Samuel G. Drake.

(1865; New York, 1969), 1:282; Increase Mather, A Brief History of the War with the

Indians in New-England, in So Dreadfull a Judgment: Puritan Responses to King

Philip's War, 1676-1677, ed. Richard Slotkin and James K. Folsom (Middletown,

Conn., 1978), 141.

67. John Pynchon to John Leverett, Aug. 15, 1676, in The Pynchon Papers, ed. Carl

Bridenbaugh (Boston, 1982), 1:168.

68. Mather, Brief History, 132. In his 1676, Stephen Saunders Webb argues that Andros

encouraged Philip to remove to New York permanently in order to increase the

population of the Duke of York's dominions (370).

69. Edmund Andros to Governor Leverett, Oct. 16, 1675, in MAC, vol. 68:17, MA.

70. Samuel Symonds to Sec. Sir Joseph Williamson, Apr. 6, 1676, in Calendar of State

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Papers, 9:371, item #876. An April 5, 1676, draft is reprinted in full in Documen

tary History of the State of Maine, ed. James Phinney Baxter (Portland, 1900),

6:109-113.

71. Thomas Church's The Entertaining History of Philip's War, published in 1716, was

the first account of the war to use a version of the name "King Philip's War." A Nar

rative of the Planting of the Massachusets Colony Anno 1628. Published by Old

Planters, the Authors of the Old Mens Tears (Boston, 1694), 38-39, 42., 43-45, 72.

72. R. Wharton to John Winsley, Feb. 10, 1675/76, in Calendar of State Papers,

9:350-351, item #816.

73. James Brown to Go v. Winslow, June 15, 1675, Winslow family II papers, MHS.

74. Saltonstall, "A Continuation of the State of New-England," 69.

75. Nathaniel Saltonstall, "A New and Further Narrative of the State of New-Eng

land," in Narratives of the Indian Wars; Church, Diary of King Philip's War, 156.

76. A Court Martial held at Newport, Rhode Island, In August and September, 1676, for the trial of Indians, charged with being engaged in King Philip's War (Albany, 1858).

Plymouth and Massachusetts viewed Rhode Island's trial and execution of these

war criminals as a presumptuous abuse of the authority those colonies had long claimed over the Wampanoags and Narragansetts. Plymouth demanded that all

war criminals be sent to them for trial, to which Massachusetts added its second.

Edward Rawson to Josiah Winslow, Aug. 20, 1676, Winslow family II papers, MHS. Rhode Island undoubtedly felt its claim to authority over the Indians, con

firmed by the royal commissioners in 1665, superceded that of both colonies. While

they agreed to return Plymouth Indians who fled to Rhode Island, they refused to

send Narragansetts to Massachusetts, trying and executing them themselves.

77. Meade depositions, Maine Historical Society Archives.

78. Edward Randolph, Oct. 12, 1676, in Calendar of State Papers, 9:463, item #1067.

79. Mather, A Brief History, 102-103.

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